Let go and let _______

"Let go and let God" is a phrase that resonates with me from time to time. I guess I'm still working out the "God" part in my mind, but nonetheless, I believe in certain things being somewhat out of my control, and therefore, sometimes, we just have to let difficult things unfold, and have faith that when clarity finally reveals herself, we find a shift that was better than we expected. That being said, I've never been one to love transitions, and find a certain level of discomfort when I can't see into the future. I'm not terribly adventurous this way, and like the security of knowing what is around the corner. This is definintely reflected in my job choices. The first real job I had lasted for eight years. I electively left that job after being certified as a teacher to move onto other opportunties. The change was actually not as difficult as I had anticipated, perhaps because I was somewhat in control of the choice, and it was a good move. My second job is where I am to this day...coincedentally enough, another eight year stint. However this time, my possible departure is not by choice, but due to luck of the draw, how the cards fell, where I stood in line. My departure is all based on my number in the bigger order.

My number is 3.6. The true make-up of it doesn't really matter at this point, except to say that it means that myself, along with another two teachers, are being "surplussed" out of our current building. One teacher won't have a job at all. The other one, along with myself, will supposedly have a job somewhere in our district. I think most who know me understand I don't feel particuarly "entitled" to things and that I really feel a great deal of gratitude for those things I have been blessed with and worked hard for. So the logical, "mom-lessons" part of me keeps telling myself how grateful I am that I still have a contract. That the situation could be much worse, which it could. I have pretty much accepted that things will be different for me next year, maybe radically so. I might be staying home with my kids (which frankly, sounds amazing). I might be tutoring, I might be subbing, or I might be in a new school, with a new teaching partner, in a new job-share situation, in a new grade-level, with a new staff and principal to impress. I might be further away, though I doubt that since the logistics are already a delicate tightrope to balance, and dragging my kids out of bed any earlier than I already must is too much to require of us and them. Yeah, there are a lot of questions which aren't looking to be resolved anytime soon. I'm trying to be comfortable with this...though it is mildly (or majorly) unsettling I admit.

Soooooo, I'm in an okay space. We'll be okay. We don't think we'll go bankrupt or lose our house. We know we'll have to streamline and tighten our belts. But we'll be okay.

But then suddenly tonight, in the quiet of the night when everyone was asleep, my mind was racing with the long to-do list (I have one for my personal life of course, but also one for my teaching life). I was thinking about how we will get all of things left to do this school year done in time when suddenly, I found myself thinking about the last day of school. And suddenly, my heart began to break a little....or maybe more than a little.

You see, I'm not electively leaving my school. I'm being factory-style, business modeled transplanted somewhere else. It doesn't matter if I'm an effective teacher, who's made strong and deep connections with staff, students, and families. I am of course, just a 3.6, which means I don't get to stay after my eight years at Seaview. So as I began to think about that last day, my heart began to break a little....or maybe more than a little.

I love this time of the year as a teacher. My students and I know each other well and the things they can do at this time is amazing. They know my boundaries, limits, and quirks, which usually enables me to grant them more freedom to pursue learning in a really organic, authentic way. It's like we work all year to get to this place. So June always seems like the celebration of all that hard work and amazing achievement. Sixth graders are moving on to bigger things and are both excited and nervous for this rite of passage into middle school. I love being a part of that. The last day of school gets to be about sending them off in a cloud of positive energy and everyone leaves feeling happy and euphoric. But this year will be tainted with a darker energy, and tonight, in the quiet, I realized it, and my heart began to break a little.

I'm now afraid for that last day, knowing that I'll also be packing my things and bidding farewell to an amazing group of people who have particpated in the adolescence of my career. They have literally nurtured me through my student-teaching, and watched me grow up, so to speak. I'll be saying good-bye to the building I know, the environment I love, the community that has my former students who are now graduating from high school, touring colleges, and being featured on the news highlighting such things as athletic achievements. I guess I'm struggling...not even about the fact that the time will come for me to bid farewell, but that my time has come not because of my own choices, but because I'm just a 3.6. It doesn't matter that I've worked hard, that I have deep roots in the heart of my school, or that I've invested my passion in this space. At the end of the day, I'm just a 3.6, so away I go.

I'm not alone. This is happening everywhere. This is just one, of what feels like innumerable consequences, of a political and social environment that undervalues and undermines the importance of the school system, and the PEOPLE in it. Maybe that's the biggest source of pain....that we're expected to be the most nurting, compassionate, caring PEOPLE to be effective and "good" teachers. But yet, we don't ge to be the recipients of such expectation ourselves. It hurts more than I thought it would. I don't know why, but I feel embarrassed almost, or maybe just brazenly vulnerable. There's no way to be protected from this horrible mess that politics, government, and frankly a large part of our population has put our educational system in. Just trying to work it out in my head and my heart.

Yours truly,
3.6